Several tray designs are known for gas-liquid contactors used in processes including reactions and separations. In each design, trays are situated within the towers for contact between the components of mixtures within the towers. Several tray designs are known, as described by, for example, Philip C. Wankat in “Equilibrium Staged Separations” published by Elsevier (1988), C. Judson King in “Separation Processes” published by McGraw-Hill Book Company (2nd edition, 1980), Henry Z. Kister in “Distillation Design” published by McGraw-Hill, Inc. (1992), and Johann G. Stichlmair and James R. Fair in “Distillation: Principles and Practice” published by Wiley-VCH (1998). It is also known that the downcomer layout pattern affects tray efficiency, as described by Wijn, E. F. in “The effect of downcomer layout pattern on tray efficiency” published in The Chemical Engineering Journal, vol. 63, pages 167-180 (1996).
Chemical process towers are designed for performance of a variety of processes, as illustrated in commercial literature available from tower manufacturers such as “Trays for Distillation, Absorption, Stripping and Extraction” published by UOP.
Several tray designs have been invented, of which the following are representative examples: U.S. Pat. No. 3,729,179 (1973) issued to Keller; U.S. Pat. No. 3,747,905 (1973) issued to Nutter et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,269,976 (1993) issued to Biddulph et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,453,222 (1995) issued to Lee et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,371,455 (2002) issued to Lee et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,817,596 (2004) issued to Fischer.